Such has been Microsoft's focus on consumers when launching and advertising Windows 7, you'd be forgiven for thinking business users didn't even exist.
Yet, in early 2010, the wave of Windows 7 rollout will begin inside Microsoft-centric IT shops.
A study of 184 customers considered mid- and large-sized customers by desktop …

COMMENTS

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Wrong quote?

There appears to be a mistake in quote on top of Page 2

"Windows 7 is a service pack or a fix for Windows Vista," Blake said. "But they branded it as a new product because if they said SP 3 - even if it has every single fix - they would have had to give it for free instead of being able to charge for it."

Call me cynical...

It is almost as if MS wanted Vista to fail, lock businesses into a corner, so now all the businesses stuck with XP have got fork out bucket loads on Win7 licenses and they now have no choice but to upgrade! Now it will be such a rush, guess what you need? Yep, conultants with the Win7 know-how to come in and help you, at a huge cost of course, to get your Win7 project in as soon as!

Whatever.

Around here (SF Bay Area), Win7 is almost universally referred to as Vista SP3.

Regardless of how you look at it, Vista/Win7 is a bloated, slow, pig compared to XP.

And XP is, itself, a bloated, slow pig ... One wonders why/how the featured companies seem to enjoy Microsoft's lipstick approach to OS design. It doesn't matter how many layers of lipstick you put on the pig, it's still a pig.

Me, I'm actually looking forward to telling my clients that I am no longer upgrading my AutoDesk products, and as a result I won't be able to bleed on their plans electronically anymore ... it is going to happen at the end of the year, when my last long-term contract expires.

It's kind of funny, actually ... I'm retiring my small cluster of vaxen on December 31, and the last of my Microsoft machines are going away the same day. The difference is that I'll leave the vaxen plugged in, and bootable, should anyone need my services ... But the MS stuff will be reformatted to run Slackware. I will never take on another MS contract. I'm quite looking forward to it :-)

KVM switches

I wouldn't recommend W7 for businesses if you use KVM switching (particularly DVI switches), like my company and some call centres I could mention.

The whole KVM area seems to be an unworkable mess, for which Microsoft's solution appears to be "buy new hardware". They seem to be ignoring the problem because it currently only affects home users. Hopefully, that will change when businesses realise that it's unusable for them.

Right on one thing

Windows 7 is a Vista Service Pack.... My upgraded Vista Dell Laptop still hangs occasionally, Explorer stops working quite frequently and those annoying requests to allow programs to alter something or other! Especially Outlook... almost wish for Linux or XP.

A great investigative piece ?

More MS Propaganda

This sounds like more Microsoft marketing bullshit to me.

Sorry, but I've heard this sort of American sales crap too many times already. Surely they must have picked up by now that it isn't the Operating System that people hate, it's the bogus company that sells broken stuff that the consumer has to fix.

As a daily user of the PC, I have to state categoricaly, there is nothing interesting or exciting about having to go looking for the application menus that the egg heads have just moved to somewhere else, or marketing types have had removed altogether.

Mind you, Ubuntu Linux is't a great deal better in this, it simply costs me ONLY the earning curve, which is enough, when you just want to do some work.

There is no new hardware required, no new office software required.

Hey ho, I've saved a packet already.

I still need to provide the cost for maintenance, whatever the OS.

So, if folks really like to be on the leading edge, good, I'll pick up the pieces when their machines fail.

So all those people who said "I won't be rolling out Vista"

Its all in the way you look at it

"The arrival of Windows 7 gives them the opportunity to replace aging PCs with machines boasting faster processors, larger memory, and hard drives."

H'mmm. Shouldn't this be:

The demise of support for Windows XP gives them no option but to replace perfectly good, working PCs with machines boasting faster processors, larger memory, and hard drives, simply to run Windows 7 adequately.

Budget?

I wonder how many companies will still have budget when it's time to put there hands in their pockets. Particularly when they find they need to buy new hardware and they've laid off all their IT staff to cut costs already.

Once companies start, someone will get it wrong and then the bad press will start.

I've not tried it yet, but I've already had people say "I can't do that, I've got Windows 7"

So, marketing works, then..

In Windows XP and Office 2007 we had the first instance of users realising that upgrading is not as compulsory as Redmond made it out to be, yet everyone is nervous they really *must* update "this time".

"overwhelming hatred from users who hadn't used it"

And what is more

Many of us beta tested it, using it for many months - not just for a day or two! We despise it not because we never intended to give it a chance, but because we gave it chance after chance after chance after chance after chance.

the big problem

The big problem with getting Windows 7 into the enterprise is going to be internet explorer 6. It's still the biggest single browser out there, purely because enterprises don't want to switch away from it for fear all their internal apps and Intranets are suddenly going to fall over. In an economic downturn, what CIO is going to present to the board a proposal to invest in testing every app and every page on their corporate Intranet, update any that fail and test again just so that they can update their OS?

I love Windows 7. It's made my home network a cinch to run. But there is no way I'm pushing it forward at work. Once it reaches a critical mass in the home and people (important people) are asking for it because they like the way it runs on their home machines - then we can start to talk about it.

Need title for reply? i don't think so.

your comment proves that you don't have an idea what many mature gamers want.

There is not a single game that i am interested that is running in a console platform.

actually, the only reason i use windows is because those grand strategy and on-line games are almost only for windows.

If the game computer industry bring forward a optimized Linux based OS for games and published those games in linux, i promise that one hard drive exclusively for boot that OS and games will be on my computer before they can say hi.

Microsoft has decided...

I know what mature gamers want! actually I am one. Microsoft knows it wants to sell the xbox.

My point was that with parents buying the kids a console and buying themselves a nice MAC Microsoft are destroying the one box all tricks useability of the PC. why? Microsoft are deliberatly pushing games to the console away from the PC take GTAIV released on PC almost a Year after the xbox, the lost and the damned and the ballad of gay Tony still are not out for PC.

before you ask, No I generally dont play these but Kids do! You would have thought they would use gaming to thier advantage, but no, they see a MAC has no games and want to follow suit? what are they thinking?? all the time Linux gaming is getting better, was it unreal tornament that had a Linux client? Anyway this is not a bad thing for the user/consumer but its suicide for MS!

I too long for the day I can run all the games on Linux I too am fed up with MS's shite. but until then.. the selection of games available on the PC dwindles, while console titles increase.

BTW if you like the RTS genre get yourself a Beta Key for R.U.S.E! its looking good.

I aint paying for no service Pack.

There's the trouble!

Yep and perpetuate the need for Windows for ever more. MS, although they won't admit it, love pirates, not the rip-off and sell type they need shooting, just the home user with a single hookey copy installed. Takes real courage to make a switch from Windows to something different.

I'm confused...

There was a comedian George Carlin, but I don't remember him saying anything like that; and then there was a US President George Bush that said something similar: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me... can't get fooled again"! But I see your point.

Very confused article

So, which is it? Users don't want Vista because they'd heard it was crap, or users don't want Vista because it's dog slow? Or both? The article seems to flit between both viewpoints without drawing any conclusions.

The fact is, Vista was crap. Mostly because it was dog slow. It brought no benefit to the end user in the enterprise, so why would they embrace it?

Microsoft have now fixed the major issue with Vista (the Windows Display Driver Model -- moving to 1.1 from 1.0, just like Windows has moved from 6.0 to 6.1 -- hey, sounds like a service pack to me!); and tweaked some of the ageing UI paradigms (let's face it, Vista brought nothing new in terms of UI -- just fancier graphics for the same paradigms).

A combination of XP beginning to show its age, lack of mainstream XP support, and an overdue hardware refresh (which causes the inverse to the driver problems that Vista had -- try getting XP drivers for some of the new kit!) means that adoption of the latest Windows is inevitable.

Hell, I wish my firm would ditch the Win laptops entirely and get us some fancy Macs. It's not like we need anything the PC offers on the desktop side.

"overwhelming hatred from users who hadn't used it"

As an owner of Vista Ultimate do I qualify when I say I contain Overwhelming Hatred for the steaming pile of turd and words fail me for the description of the lowlifes who want to seperate my wallet from me again. £30 for win7 Pro (educational Upgrade - available to any .ac.uk email!) but £160 to fix my PC because it had ultimate on it???!?! Pigs in the trough!

Win7 offers nothing...

...and the only reason to upgrade will be the slow demise of any support for XP. Then again, what do you upgrade too? And does Win7 let you do anything better/faster than XP does?

If Linux gets decent printer support (I'm looking at YOU Lexmark/Dell), multi-head support (a few Gnome bug fixes and Intel/ATI given a slap - thank god I'm Nvidia on the big box) and VPN support (hello CheckPoint, this is the 21st century calling) then it could well be a viable alternative. Ooo yeah, and you can get Flash to actually run with out it becoming jumpy-jerk fest.

With the rise of Droid and the whole Googley love-fest, some of those might actually get fixed. Which would be nice.

My Chrimbo project: have another look at MythTV and see if it has got anywhere near MediaCenter (which, apart from notepad, is about the best thing MS has ever written. Hmm, add the calculator to the list; that's pretty good too).

It's pot luck

Lexmark printers won't work on Linux (OK, that's a bit over an over-generalisation, but the support really sucks).

Multi-head is a bit pot-luck. You might be lucky, you might just have to fiddle a bit with xrandr or you may enter the pain zone (gnome+intel graphics+multi-head = nightmare; that's been my experience anyway, yours may vary).

The way the corporate firewall is set up, it will only let in a CheckPoint client, and CheckPoint does not support Linux. OpenSwan etc are no-go (I'd be summarily dismissed if I tried).

I know all these things *can* be done, but it still hit-and-miss I'm afraid. I'm just hoping that the fanboi rush to droid will force companies to up their game (or open their code up so it can be ported).

If you want to do multi-head,

use a real video card, which Intel certainly ain't. What the FUCK is it with Intel and their frigging chipsets? I've had nothing but trouble with Intel video and Intel wireless adapters under both Windows XP and Windows 7. Ironically, I've had less trouble with them under Linux (though still some issues). Seriously, Intel, get the hell out of the goddamn wireless and video markets if you can't make a decent bloody card to save your lives. Or write some drivers that actually work. Or some bloody thing. Maybe it's time to return to using the old 'Evil Inside' stickers.

me too "overwhelming hatred from users who hadn't used it"

Another vote for 'tried it, hated it'. If Win7 is just a fix pack for Vista its going to be less painful moving to Linux. Even the brain dead desktop versions pouring out of Ubuntu ;)

You'd think by now the Microsoft fanbois would have accepted it wasn't a whispering campaign of disinformation that killed Vista, the product really is that bad. They've spent so long astroturfing they assume everyone else is just as corrupt.

cost/benefits?

IF you only use office packages, and general purpose commercial software packages, then an upgrade isn't a big issue. However, I work in banking, and we use hundreds of custom applications. Even if we don't change a single line of code, it all has to be tested for months on end before anyone will stick their neck out and say do it.

And that's if nothing changes, i know for a fact that all of the browser based applications were written by a bunch of cowboys, and i knwo they'll fall flat on their faces and cry as soon as you take IE6 away from them. Any changes that, say, impact the tcp/ip stack will mean a lot of our proprietary networking code needs to be looked at (hey it was cutting edge 15 years ago) as our whole infrastructure has grown up around it.

The upgrade itself will be a massive undertaking as a large number of our machines chug along with XP, never mind 7. So the real driver for upgrade will be when the cost of ongoing XP support from microsoft, outweighs the cost in upgrading, exactly as it was for NT4 a few years ago. Maybe in 10 years time when it's had a chance to mature!

Win 7 meh

I had a machine with Vista Ultimate on iot, never saw any reason that the extra was charged for, and as I got that machine free from MS (not that the WiFi worked from install, when it did on a Live Ubuntu CD).

Din't like it.

New games machine came with Vista Home Premium, with service pack ok enough, but nothing fantastic.

I put Win 7 onto it at the weekend, still not impressed. When the trade press rave about the semi-hidden show desktp button, you know they are finding it hard to justify.

In many ways my Xubuntu Asus 701 is a nicer machine to use, my Rock Pegasus with Xubuntu is a joy from the software side, responsive as anything.

I'll dual boot my Win 7 machine but, if games like LoTRO and Company of Heroes were in Linux form, I'd dump Windows in a heartbeat

I'm running it...

my mate bought it, I tested it on his computer, and finally upgraded my XP partition. It's faster than vista, and I needed something DX10+ capable so I can get new pretties running on it :D Plus I get it for £30 for bring a tax dodging student :P

Ubuntu remains my primary OS for uni work and general webbrowser usage, but I no longer feel quite so lost when I reboot into windows. (If you've used any modern Linux distro/mac, XP feels hella clunky) and I can FINALLY get the HL2 cinematic mod to work (kinda).

I'm gonna be hated for this....

Just bought a new pc with 64-bit Win 7 - It's a replacement for an XP system that finally died last Thursday night. I was planning to upgrade next year once it's had chance to settle, but looking at over £100 for new bits to make this one work again made me think "what the hell" and I splashed out on a complete new box, and have spent the last few days setting it up and playing with it.

I have to say, I like Win7. I skipped Vista at home, but have to use it at work every day, so I'm *very* familiar with just how flaky it is and how much of a PitA it is to use, especially for dev work.

I've obviously had to spend time getting it the way I want it (after 6 years with a system on XP, nothing is where I want it and was used to it being!) but overall, I am impressed with it. I can't refer to it as Vista SP3, because it works, and I enjoy using it - something I can't say about Vista at all.

I eagerly await the abuse...

(PS: even as a Win7 supporter, that article should have read "advertising feature"!)

It's a $%$!@! service pack alright.....

I installed Vista late last spring, after all the horror stories it was stable and I didn't have any of the copying problems or other issues people reported. I did have the Vista-ific issues with an explorer shell that is now completely $@$%!@ed up, and a control panel that is more arcane than helpful. I honestly couldn't find things when I searched, and what happened to the up folder button? Why keep screwing things up? It's like someone in marketing said "25% of the people like to do things this way, 25% like it that way...." and the manager said "Let's put them all in!" And don't get me started on UAC.....

So I install 7.....aside from a a different start screen and menu it looks like the exact same thing, even using the same drivers, or maybe not. You're supposed to use Windows 7 drivers if they work. And now I'm having blue screen crashes after years of never seeing one. The "Windows-Kernel-Power" error looks like the new "General Protection Fault." Anything from your sound card drivers to Ram voltages seems to be able to cause it. Have I fixed it? Heck if I know, just keep using the Windows Experience and see if the night of upgrading drivers and flashing firmware worked.

I still have UAC, I still have an explorer that doesn't work, I still have a messed up control panel....Hey Microsoft, if you think we're all idiots then quit trying to make these things idiot-proof! Just stick on a button saying "Do you know what you're doing? If no, then stay out of it!" Why is the display resolution now "Appearance and Personalization," why is there the #!$%^!# "Anytime Upgrade?" If I wanted it I would have bought it in the first place! Why so many versions? Why not just two, one for home users/gamers and one for business?

So I basically all it feels I got was a new splash screen and a lot more aggravation. Thanks a lot, Microsoft!

Didn't find Vista toooo bad

I did have Vista for a while, and for what I used it for it was ok (clunky in places but generally ok). My wife who got a new machine with the rip-off that was Vista Ultimate installed, hated it with a passion for many justifiable reasons.

I have since thrown W7 on both machine, and we both find it a lot more comfortable to use.

I regularly try out the likes of Ubunto just to keep an eye on what is happening, but I inevitably end up discarding it due to ugly displays (the font rendering seems to be dreadful) and the fact it cannot run some of the programs (Première pro) and all important games that I use. However, if I ran a business where all that was needed was the normal office suites, then the lot of them would be running Linux and openoffice unless there was a spectacularly good financial or technical justification for them not to.

Don't gang up on me but.........

........ I love windows 7.

I have been using it a corporate enviroment since the RTM version came out, and it's alot faster than XP was on the same hardware. the legacy app installer helps alot when it comes our rubbish apps like BMC Remedy etc.

i liked i so much so i updated my netbook(advent 4211), desktop and workbook, and the only thing I needed drivers for was the fingerprint scanner on the 8710w.

the big pressing point for us rolling it out to end users is the training it will require, no start button anymore, not a big deal, but going from office 2003 to 2007 caused us some training issues. deployment will be done with WDS and MDT2010, really looking forward to it !